


Ride the Wild Wind

by everyoneinspaceisgay



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Compliant, Lie Low At Lupin's (Harry Potter), M/M, Queen (Band) References, Remus Swears A Lot, Some angst, argument, happy/hopeful ending, mentions HIV/AIDS crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-06-02 03:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19432693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyoneinspaceisgay/pseuds/everyoneinspaceisgay
Summary: Lying low at Lupin's, and Remus is being very cold with Sirius.(The title is from a song, but it doesn't have that much to do with the fic, I'm just bad at titles.)





	Ride the Wild Wind

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second year I've entered this fest and once again I've had so much fun! Thank you so much to the mods, you're brilliant.

Sirius couldn’t help but wonder where he’d gone wrong. Maybe it had been when, after a hurried meeting with Dumbledore, they’d apparated to a familiar Welsh village and he’d eagerly set off in the direction of the cottage that had been a refuge in summers past. Only for Remus to tug his arm, and drag him wordlessly to a small dingy flat above a chippy. Since then, they’d barely spoken to each other, and the atmosphere in the flat was as cold and oppressive as the seemingly perpetual mist that covered the town and gave no inclination of recognising that it was June any time soon. After a few days, he’d spent most of his time in the dog form. 

From his few trips out to buy stationary to write to Harry, or when the atmosphere in the flat felt suffocating, the village itself felt different. It wasn’t just the omnipresent mist, he was sure of it, but the entire place seemed to have a depressing air to it. For one thing, everyone he saw looked tired and sad, and there seemed to be too many people at the pub during the day. Even the newsagents he remembered frequenting with Remus to buy cigarettes seemed to have given into the overall moodiness of the place, its previously bright sign faded and peeling. 

Back at the flat, all he could think to do was apologise. After all, it was him trusting Peter that had cost the lives of their closest friends, and he couldn’t help but imagine that maybe despite what Remus had said back in the Shack, he probably still rightfully blamed him. Still, there were times when Remus seemed a little more receptive to conversation even if it was mostly about mundane or practical things. 

After the first moon since the events at Hogwarts, when Sirius had been patching him up, Remus had volunteered the information that Lyall still lived in the cottage that had been his childhood home. Sirius had the good sense, for once, to realise that this was a time to listen and that Remus would tell him more if he waited. It had been several hours later, when Sirius brought him a bowl of soup in an attempt to persuade him to eat something, that Remus had elaborated. Lyall had helped him get this flat by putting in a good word with the landlord. Remus hadn’t said where he’d lived before that, or even how recently he’d moved, but Sirius hadn’t wanted to press. It was clear that despite Lyall’s ‘help’, the father and son were somewhat estranged.

A couple of weeks later, and Sirius’ mood had only darkened. Sure, he’d escaped Azkaban, but the general coldness from Remus and the lifeless village seemed almost as soul-destroying to his mind. He was also beginning to gather from Harry’s letters that the Dursleys could almost give his own parents a run for their (not inconsiderable amount of) money. Sure, Harry wasn’t saying much about it, but the absence of details almost confirmed Sirius’ suspicions. He’d written to Dumbledore, expressing such concerns, but the old man had just replied saying that Privet Drive was where Harry was safest. Sirius wanted to feel angry, but he just felt guilty. If he hadn’t trusted Peter, if he’d just been the Secret Keeper like they’d originally planned…

*

Remus didn’t think things could be much worse. Here he was, stuck back in a town full of memories of his mother and the Marauders at their best, in a damp flat that he’d only been able to get by begging his father for help. Of course, it hadn’t even occurred to Dumbledore that when he suggested ‘lying low at Lupin’s’ there might not exactly be a ‘Lupin’s’ to go to. To top it off, Sirius was sulking. And when he wasn’t sulking, he was apologising. Grovelling practically. But the thing was, Remus didn’t give a flying fuck that Sirius had trusted Peter. He had too. and it angered him that Sirius didn’t even think to apologise for how he’d treated him and that these apologies just seemed another outlet for his unending self-pity.

One evening the silence in the flat had become unbearable, so he’d put an album on without even looking at what it was. As Freddie Mercury’s voice filled the flat he could hear Sirius pacing his room, and then the door opening. He braced himself for whatever stilted conversation would follow.

“What you listening to?” asked Sirius groggily, “It sounds like Queen but I don’t recognise it.”

“Yeah, it is. Innuendo, came out whilst you were in Azkaban I guess.”

“Oh. Makes sense.”

Sirius was still painfully thin, and the enormous bags under his eyes showed he still wasn’t sleeping. Remus tried to keep his anger, to resist hugging the other man and forgiving him as he had done in the Shack.

“Remember that time we saw them in Hyde Park? We should see them again sometime.”

Luckily, Sirius made it easy for Remus to remain angry.

“Mercury’s dead.”

Sirius just stared. Stared with eyes that were filling with tears, goddamn him.

“This was his last album,” Remus continued, not really sure why he was continuing with the conversation. It was the most they’d said to each other at one time since arriving in this godforsaken place. “Which you would know if you’d been around.”

Sirius looked wounded and Remus feared he might actually start crying. “I didn’t exactly choose to go to Azkaban, you know.”

“Sure,” Remus replied, fully intending to leave it there. But then Sirius transformed into the dog and he saw red. “Sure, you didn’t choose to go to Azkaban. But you chose to confess to something you didn’t do. You chose to refuse to let me visit when I was trying to fight for you to get a trial. You chose to…”

“To switch Keepers. I know. And I’ve said I’m sorry a thousand times.” 

Sirius was back in human form and looking sad. This angered Remus more. Why wouldn’t Sirius fight back, or explain, or just anything other than apologise for the wrong bloody things?

“No. You don’t know and that’s the whole fucking problem.” Remus realised belatedly that he’d started shouting. “You don’t even know that Freddie fucking Mercury is dead. You come back, after 13 years, and try and act like it can be the same and we can just go to a fucking concert. It can’t.”

Finally, finally, Sirius looked annoyed as well as hurt.

“I know damn well it’s not the same. I spent 12 long years having every last good memory sucked out of me because I was stupid and trusted the wrong person and as good as killed my best friends.”

Remus could scream. 

“Fucking hell Sirius, it’s not all about you. You don’t have a fucking monopoly on suffering. I lost my best friends too, and my boyfriend because he thought I was a fucking spy. And then, even when he realised I wasn’t he was too damn busy wallowing in his own self-pity that he refused to even see said boyfriend who was trying to set him free because for some stupid reason he still loved him.”

“I’m so-”

“If you’re going to apologise again for trusting Peter I might just... Just. Just fucking listen. You didn’t trust me, you treated me like shit, and I still wanted to help you. I lost my best friends. Harry was being sent to live with those awful people and Minister Bagnold made it clear that if there wasn’t already a law to prevent werewolves adopting then she’d make sure to pass one before I could even submit the paperwork. I was alone. You fucking left me when I needed you most and you don’t even have the decency to apologise for not trusting me and I fucking needed you and you weren’t there.”

Remus was vaguely aware he wasn’t really making sense, and that his cheeks were wet, but now he’d started shouting he couldn’t seem to stop. 

“I was alone and I was drinking and I’d lost everyone. I even moved to fucking America to get away from the memories and the pitying looks and I gradually made some new friends and then they all fucking died too and the government didn’t care and I was alone and do you even know how many moons there were?”

“165.”

Remus took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He hadn’t meant to bring up San Francisco, and Sirius knowing the exact number of transformations he’d spent alone had thrown him off. “You left me when I needed you most, and I was still trying to think of ways to help you when I saw you on the map. I never truly believed you’d sold Lily and James out. But you never extended the same trust to me and not once have you ever thought to apologise for it.”

He turned to leave and wandered through the streets lined with boarded-up shops. He was just so fucking tired.

*

The flat door clicked shut, startling Sirius out of his thoughts. It had been three days since Remus had left. The first day he’d drunk a bottle or two of Ogden’s finest and listened to the Innuendo album on repeat. The second he’d sent about a hundred owls to Remus, hoping that maybe one of them would find him. Now though, he just listened as Remus’ footsteps lead straight to his bedroom and the door closed behind him. It was only when the last of the sunlight had completely faded that he managed to summon the courage to approach Remus’ door. It was funny really, yesterday he’d wanted nothing less than to speak to Remus, but now he was doing it because he knew in his heart that if he didn’t then this really would be the end. All of the previous day’s speeches had deserted his mind as he stood there, trying to imagine what Remus was doing the other side of the door. Suddenly he pushed it open, as though ripping off a plaster, and the door banged loudly against the wall. Remus was lying on the bed facing the wall, and he showed no sign of having heard the intrusion.

“Moony I…” Sirius started, “I was a shit boyfriend and a shit friend. You put up with me for much longer than you should have, and I’m sorry I didn’t extend the same trust to you.”

He took the lack of reaction as a good thing, given the explosive anger Remus had demonstrated he was capable of, and slowly approached the bed. Gingerly, he sat down on the edge, half expecting to be thrown out.

“It’s not an excuse, and you know as well as anyone that I’ve always been a little too self-absorbed, but in Azkaban the Dementors they… When they take your good memories and all your happiness and everything they take away everything that isn’t you. And that’s the scariest thing, realising who you really are, deep down. How awful you are. And you forget that other people exist in any way other than to cause pain and I guess that mindset stuck a little longer than I thought because I could only think how awful I am, have been, and not how you are feeling. And that’s really shit of me and…”

He stopped as to his shock Remus rolled over to look at him, and slowly took his hand.

“You aren’t awful Pads. I didn’t mean all of what I said.”

“You did, but it’s ok.”

Remus just squeezed his hand.

“Moons, you have no reason to believe me, but I really am sorry for not trusting you, or thinking of your feelings. Please give me a chance to show you.”

They sat in silence for a while before Sirius eventually stood up and walked to the door. 

“Wait,” said Remus, so quietly Sirius almost didn’t hear him, “I meant it. What you saw in yourself in Azkaban wasn’t the real you. It was just a warped distortion from the lack of positives available once the Dementors had taken them. You are selfish and cruel, but you’re also kind and funny and loyal. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have loved you.”

Sirius couldn’t help himself. He knew Remus was trying to make him feel better even though he didn’t deserve it, but his heart shattered all the same. “Loved?” he croaked out.

Remus was silent for a while, but then Sirius felt warm arms encircling him from behind.

“Loved, love, will always love. You daft mutt. Let’s go and listen to some more of the music you’ve missed.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, please feel free to comment.


End file.
